BANGOR, Maine — Carl Parker, a pioneer of Maine’s AAU basketball movement during the early 1990s, has been inducted into the New England AAU Hall of Fame.
Parker’s selection was announced recently by New England AAU president Ed Skovron and former state director and New England AAU chair Josh Tardy of Newport.
“When you talk of the success of Maine AAU, the conversation has to start with Carl Parker,” Skovron said.
Parker, the boys varsity basketball coach at Bangor High School, becomes the first Mainer selected to the New England AAU hall since its initial inductions in 2009.
“Carl believes that Maine kids could compete at the national level,” said Tardy, the boys varsity basketball coach at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield and a former AAU assistant under Parker for more than a decade. “He is passionate about providing quality instruction and opportunities that challenge young athletes to realize their potential. He is a great coach and deserves this honor.”
Parker has a lengthy high school coaching resume and was one of the originators of Maine’s AAU basketball program in 1991. He has been credited with aiding many of the state’s top college basketball prospects while molding that individual talent into teams capable of playing competitively in regional and national tournaments over the past 25 years.
“You want kids to be competitive in every game,” Parker said during a 2015 Bangor Daily News interview. “If you’re competitive in every game you’ll come to the realization that there are going to be some teams that are better than you. But if you go into it knowing that, then if you win a fair share of those games that maybe you shouldn’t win and you win a majority of the games that you should win, you’d call that a pretty good season.”
Parker has coached numerous teams to AAU national tournament appearances, highlighted by his 17-and-under squads that earned 11th-place finishes at the AAU 11th-Grade National Championships in 2007 and 2014.
The 2014 U-17 squad included the likes of the state’s 2015 Mr. Basketball, Kyle Bouchard of Houlton, and 2015 Gatorade Maine Player of the Year Nick Mayo of Messalonskee of Oakland. The 2007 team featured another former Mr. Basketball, Tom Knight of Dirigo of Dixfield, who played at Notre Dame.
Parker’s teams also have won numerous state AAU titles, and he served as an assistant coach at the 2000 USA Basketball Men’s Youth Development Festival in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
“I think creating a pathway (for individual opportunities) is very important, but I also believe that unless you develop a cohesive team and win games you’re probably not going to provide that opportunity,” Parker said. “It’s important to provide a vehicle where kids blend together and play for a common goal, which is to win games, and the more you win and the more success they have winning will provide more opportunities for those kids whether it’s Division I or Division II or Division III.”
New England AAU recognizes its hall of fame honorees in boys and girls basketball as well as baseball.
Paul Wholey, a University of Maine basketball star during the mid-1970s who has enjoyed a long coaching career in Massachusetts, was inducted into the New England AAU Hall of Fame in 2011.
